Holding On to a Good Story: Making ‘God Save Texas’

New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright remembers colleagues asking, “Why do you live in Texas?” when his location shouldn’t have been exceptional. Writers from all over the world contribute to the magazine. The difference, Wright says, is that Texas was perceived as “anti-New York.” Once a left-leaning state, Texas has swung far to the right. It’s one of the most polarized states in the nation.

After Wright’s editor, David Remnick, encouraged him to explain Texas, he thought, “Maybe it’s time to look at my home again and see what it is that keeps me here.” Examining one of the most important decisions that shape us all—where we choose to live, Wright authored “America’s Future Is Texas” and “The Dark Bounty of Texas Oil” for the New Yorker in 2017.

The following year, he finished God Save Texas, the book that inspired the 2024 HBO documentary series of the same name. In the trilogy, Texas filmmakers return to their hometowns with Wright to make sense of the Lone Star State’s past and present.

Wright felt these personal Texas stories would resonate with wide audiences who want to understand the bellwether state. By 2025, Texas will have more residents than California and New York combined. “Because the state is so dominant politically, economically, and culturally,” Wright says, “whatever happens in Texas, happens to America. In some ways, it’s the future of the world.”

From Book to Screen

After publishing New Yorker essays on Texas politics and the oil and gas industry, Wright had a lot left to explore. But he needed to know where he was going, because a book about Texas could have many destinations. Wright realized the secret to making the book cohesive would be to cultivate a relationship with readers. His personal stories became the connective tissue that brings Texas history, politics, and culture to life.

When God Save Texas was published in 2018, HBO president of programming Michael Lombardo optioned the national best seller. Then Alex Gibney came on board as executive producer.

Wright and Gibney began their creative partnership in 2006. At that time, Wright faced months of promotion for his book, The Looming Tower, which examines the events leading up to 9/11. Instead of a traditional book tour, he created a one-man play, My Trip to Al-Qaeda, to share with audiences the ethical issues he confronted while reporting on the formation of Al-Qaeda.

Gibney, who had long admired Wright’s literature, saw his performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “I was knocked out by it,” says Gibney, who thought it would make an interesting film. In 2010, they released My Trip to Al-Qaeda as a hybrid documentary with clips from Wright’s play, archival footage, and interviews they filmed in Egypt and the U.K. 

They went on to produce the 2015 HBO documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and the 2018 Hulu series The Looming Tower, both inspired by Wright’s books. Going Clear, according to Wright, is among HBO’s most-watched documentaries. Gibney produced premium documentaries for years with his company Jigsaw Productions. 

With confidence in the team, HBO greenlit God Save Texas without a predetermined script. 

The book covers a lot of territory, so they could not simply illustrate it. With input from HBO, Wright and Gibney pared the series to three episodes that would focus on the border, the oil and gas industry, and one last topic, not yet determined.

Since Wright has a strong presence in the book, they wanted to reflect that approach while giving voice to the Texas filmmakers who would direct the episodes. As an executive producer, Wright would support the directors, on and off camera, helping them craft their stories throughout production.

Initially, Wright approached iconic Texas filmmaker Richard Linklater about directing all three episodes. They first met in 1990 at a vegetarian restaurant in Austin, where Wright interviewed Linklater about his breakout film, Slacker. They’ve maintained a friendship since.

Because Linklater’s wheelhouse is fiction, he couldn’t imagine directing the entire series. But there was a story he felt he could tell sincerely—one he had in mind for more than 20 years.

Episode 1. “Hometown Prison”

Linklater grew up in Huntsville, Texas. The city’s seven prisons are the main economic driver that touches all residents. For much of Linklater’s childhood, the state had not executed a single prisoner. But in 1982, Texas reinstated capital punishment. Today, it leads the country in executions.

The cruelty of the system became personal. Many of Linklater’s friends worked inside prisons. Others became incarcerated, joining one-quarter of Huntsville’s population that is behind bars. After witnessing the toll it took on loved ones, Linklater’s mother, Diane, became an activist and supported prisoners, which inspired Linklater.

In 2003, Linklater was drawn back to Huntsville in a panic. Delma Banks, Jr. was scheduled to be executed, yet neither witnesses nor physical evidence tied him to the murder he was convicted of committing. Outside the prison, Linklater filmed protests and spoke with Banks’s family about what it would mean if an innocent man were put to death. 

Evan Lerner, formerly the senior creative executive at Jigsaw and co-executive producer of God Save Texas, recalls Linklater mentioning the footage. “Rick said, ‘I filmed this 20 years ago. I’ve never done anything with it. Why don’t you guys take a look at it and tell me what you think?’”

Lerner, Wright, and Gibney were struck by it. They used this part of Linklater’s personal archive to build the film around the idea of incarceration and the death penalty. While Wright had not explored these issues in his book, Linklater’s story compelled them to devote an episode to the prison system.

Before production began in 2019, Linklater compiled a long list of ideas and people he wanted to interview. As Lerner built the production team, he recalls wondering how the episode would come together, but Linklater always seemed to know how to connect the dots through his personal relationships.

The film’s structure shows how the system impacts everyone: families eagerly await the release of their loved ones, an evening guard describes how the lack of air conditioning makes the brick buildings feel like ovens during summers, and Linklater’s high school football teammate, Fred Allen, details how his opinion on the death penalty changed. Allen advocated for capital punishment while working on death row. Karla Faye Tucker’s execution changed his mind. He believes that Tucker, who had been rehabilitated, could have been a role model for other prisoners. 

“Rick built the world of Huntsville with all these people,” says Lerner. “It was like a constellation, where the throughline ended up being the connection they had to Rick and Rick’s mom.” 

In the film, Wright joins Linklater to process these issues and says Linklater's conversations with friends were profound. “I don’t care what you think about the death penalty,” says Wright, “you can’t come out after watching it thinking exactly the same thing.”

According to Wright, Linklater had some anxiety about making a personal documentary and benefited from Gibney’s editorial feedback. But, Wright recalls, “Rick fought for the surprises.”

At the end of the film, Linklater demonstrates why he loves his hometown. He visits an exuberant church congregation whose members immigrated from Nigeria and are welcomed by their new community. Among them is a high school student, Tega Okperuvwe. Linklater captures Okperuvwe performing at a football game as Buzzy, Huntsville High School’s mascot. Classmates cheer for him with as much enthusiasm as they show for the athletes on the field. 

“It was a total surprise and a delight,” says Wright. “Rick managed to bring humor to the story, which is something we tried with each one.”

Episode 2. “The Price of Oil”

As Linklater’s episode wrapped, the team began searching for a Texas director who could follow his tone by telling a personal story with a strong point of view, but about the oil and gas industry. Lerner says there wasn’t a search engine for that, so he began talking to agents. Tyler Kroos from Creative Artists Agency said, “I have the exact person for you.”

Days later, Alex Stapleton told Lerner about her Black family, which had lived in Texas for generations and was deeply ensconced in the oil and gas industry.

“Suddenly, it seemed like she was created to make this,” says Lerner.

At the time, Stapleton had been living in Los Angeles and directing documentaries for more than a decade. In January 2020, she moved to Houston to develop the film. She met with Wright and Mimi Schwartz, a journalist who introduced them to scientists and experts in the oil and gas industry. Stapleton felt like she was in a graduate program studying the environmental impact and business side of the industry. But she hadn’t yet figured out how her story fit in.

Things began to click after Stapleton went on a tour that showed her the dark side of her city through someone else’s eyes. An environmental group took Stapleton through Houston’s East End where fenceline communities butt against large refineries and chemical plants. Residents face high rates of cancer and asthma caused by smoke and toxic waste. 

They visited every neighborhood Stapleton’s family had lived in for the past 100 years.

“I knew the air smelled bad,” says Stapleton. “But to listen to someone who, through their research, showed me how to look at my neighborhood again, it was a huge lightbulb moment.”

Just as Stapleton was reimagining her family’s role in the film, the project came to a halt. Stapleton recalls eating dinner with Wright and Schwartz when her phone blew up. The mayor of Houston canceled the Livestock Show and Rodeo as news about COVID-19 surfaced. When Stapleton panicked, Wright calmed her down. He had been researching how to survive pandemics for his new novel, The End of October, which would be published soon. “Larry said, ‘Listen to me. I know what’s going to happen,’” says Stapleton. “‘You need to go to the store and make sure you have lots of diapers for your son.’”

Without a roadmap for how to film during a pandemic, production paused. That reprieve was a blessing. Stapleton had time to reconnect with her mother, Scottie, the family’s historian. “She loves sharing new things she’s found, and her house is like a museum, filled with family photos,” says Stapleton. As they reviewed the archives, her story came alive.

In the film, Stapleton and her mother discuss their enslaved ancestors who built Galveston, a coastal city. After slavery ended, they moved to Houston, where Stapleton’s great-grandmother purchased a home in Pleasantville, the nation’s first master-planned community for Black residents. As the oil industry boomed, plants and refineries were erected next to Pleasantville and other Black neighborhoods. Home values dropped, and several of Stapleton’s family members developed cancer and other illnesses.

Through her family’s story, Stapleton examines racial injustice and questions who really profits from the oil and gas industry. It took Stapleton time to find industry workers who would open up on camera about the hazards; most remained silent for fear of losing their jobs.

Stapleton faced additional challenges. In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri hit Texas. Hundreds died after the state’s electric grid shut down. The team used clips from the storm to address the vicious cycle: America’s reliance on oil and gas fuels climate change, and the resulting storms are stressing the industry’s infrastructure.

After production ended, Stapleton got a call from her great-aunt, Lela Johnson, whose home was being demolished that day. It was damaged during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Rather than repair it, the insurance company would rebuild a smaller version. The new home would no longer have the carport, where the neighborhood sheltered from the sun and gathered weekly after church and on every holiday.

With no time to hire a crew, Stapleton filmed the demolition with her cell phone. She captured her great-aunt seated in a wheelchair watching an excavator tear through the siding. “I can’t imagine the movie without that scene,” says Stapleton. “It shows what houses mean to people in fenceline communities who are told to just move.”

At the start of the project, when Stapleton watched Linklater’s episode, she thought his personal story made sense, because he is a prolific filmmaker. She wondered, “Why would anyone want to watch my story?”

While working closely with Wright, she realized her story’s value. “Larry had a way of pulling that out of us,” says Stapleton. “His book is semiautobiographical. In a really cool way, the series became a parallel experience.” 

Episode 3. “La Frontera”

Lerner says the first two episodes started to “speak to each other,” and took on the same kind of director’s voice that wasn’t planned from the beginning. For the third, Lerner needed a director with a connection to the border.

In March 2022, Lerner saw What We Leave Behind, a documentary by Iliana Sosa. The El Paso native filmed her grandfather’s final trips from Mexico to the U.S. Every month, he traveled for 17 hours by bus to visit family there.

Lerner approached Sosa about God Save Texas after her film premiered. Sosa took seven years to complete her film, which took an emotional toll. She thought she was done with this kind of personal filmmaking. But Sosa recognized God Save Texas as another chance to tell an authentic story about people living on the border who are often marked by stereotypes.

Early on, Wright and Lerner spoke with Sosa about exploring the 2019 El Paso shooting. Before killing 23 people in a Walmart, the gunman confessed to targeting Mexicans in response to large-scale migration. Sosa agreed they should not ignore violence but didn’t want it to define the story. Her goal was to show what it’s like to live in a thriving bicultural community divided by an arbitrary fence. 

“El Paso and Juarez are always in conversation,” says Sosa. “I wanted to talk about what it feels like to constantly be going back and forth.”

In the film, Sosa and her mother, Maria, have a deep conversation. Maria describes crossing the border for jobs that didn’t exist in Mexico. Beginning at age 14, she traveled every year in darkness over the Rio Grande, until she started her own family in El Paso. Sosa reveals that as a child, she translated the mail for her dad and helped her mother study for the U.S. citizenship test. When Sosa turned 15, she didn’t have a quinceañera. Instead, she went on a school trip. Growing up, Sosa felt like she was from two worlds but belonged to neither.

Wright joins Sosa to discuss the border as a region with a rich culture, rather than a manufactured line. El Paso is a city whose name means “the pass,” Wright says, where, for generations, people have crossed for better lives. “Their motives for coming are often very noble, but they are treated like criminals.” As the two sit outside, helicopters fly above. El Paso is a city under surveillance.

In the film, Wright and Sosa speak with several experts about immigration. Journalist Lauren Villagran explains how building a more expansive wall may ease patrols but pushes migrants into dangerous terrain where they are more likely to die. “What’s happening is painful,” says Sosa. “It’s a history that keeps repeating itself.”

Sosa explores this cycle with historian David Romo. He shares photos of Mexican migrants, who, before being permitted to work in the U.S., were sprayed with pesticides later used in gas chambers during the Holocaust. Sosa, whose grandfather had been through this, tears up considering the indignities.

Staying emotionally engaged while directing the episode was a challenge. Sosa trusted her producer, Danielle Mynard, to keep her on track by asking questions throughout the scenes. Sosa also credits her crew for creating a welcoming environment that helped her father Emilio gain confidence to appear in family scenes. “He ended up playing a bigger role than he thought,” says Sosa, “and was quite charismatic and funny on camera.”

As a child, Sosa says she felt shame coming from a working-class immigrant family. Now, she says her parents are “an immense source of pride,” and she is grateful to have told their story.

“What I found elevating about this series was that the filmmakers got very personal,” says Gibney, who consistently encouraged the directors to lean into their own truths. “When you dig deep into your own experience, it tends to have a universal quality.”

The Next Chapter

The God Save Texas team admits they just scratched the surface. If a second season were produced, they would welcome more Texas filmmakers to tell stories about the political map, guns, human rights, myths and lore, and arts and culture. 

“Texas music is a big part of my life,” says Wright, who is eager to explore his city’s creative scene. Wright plays keys for WhoDo, an Austin blues collective. “It might not be in documentary form,” says Wright. “But I’ll find something.”

That’s a lesson to take from Wright’s career. When he finds a good story, he holds on to it, waiting for the right time and the right medium to tell it.

Last year, he published Mr. Texas, a satire about larger-than-life characters in Texas politics. Before writing the novel, he created different incarnations of the story, beginning the process in the mid-1990s, when the state’s last Democratic governor was in office. Wright’s screenplay and musical were not produced, but his play had a run in 2005.

Now, Wright and Gibney may turn Mr. Texas into a television series and a podcast. Wright has already written eight podcast episodes and co-written 53 songs with his son Gordon and Texas blues musician Marcia Ball.

In the meantime, Wright and each filmmaker have remained in Texas, despite its problems. “We’re fighting for space for our own voices,” says Wright, “and I think this shows that we can claim that space and make Texas more ours.”

Robin Berghaus is a writer and filmmaker based in Austin, Texas.